James Murray, marketing research analyst, said: "January is traditionally the second biggest month of the year online for the travel sector and 2011 has already had a successful start with solid growth to key industry sectors.

"One of the fastest moving areas of travel we"ve seen so far in 2011 is in the cruise sector, which has grown by 15% in the last three years.

"The top performers in the cruise category which were announced in the awards have really benefited from increased online interest in cruise holidays.

"With the Royal Wedding and a plethora of bank holidays coming up people are able to take longer holidays this Easter without taking lots of days off from work.

"One of the interesting trends we"ve noticed is that people are taking advantage of this by booking more long-haul holidays. Flights to Australia are proving particularly popular this year accounting for 7% of all flight searches in January."